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Metro TOD Planning Grant Program

Best Practice Category:

Description

The TOD Planning Grant Program awards competitive grants to Los Angeles County local jurisdictions in order to encourage the adoption of local land use regulations that create a regulatory environment supportive of TOD. TOD projects take advantage of the proximity and access to public transit through appropriate density, reduced reliance upon private automobile, and enhanced walkability. Such development is found to increase the accessibility and utilization of public transportation. Municipalities with jurisdiction over land within one-half mile of existing, planned, or proposed Metrolink, Metro Rail, or Metro Transitway/Bus Rapid Transit stations and adjacent transit corridors are eligible to apply.

Expo and Sepulveda: Build Expo

Eligible projects must result in the elimination of regulatory constraints to TOD and/or the development of specific regulatory documents that can be adopted to promote transit oriented planning principles. These activities include, but are not limited to: new or amended specific plans, ordinances, overlay zones or general plans; transit village development districts; and environmental studies in support of the new or amended regulatory documents.

The program’s key objectives are:

Increase access to transit by assisting local governments to accelerate the adoption of TOD regulatory frameworks;

Improve the transit network and increase utilization of public transit by reducing the number of modes of transportation necessary to access regional and local transit;

Further the reduction of greenhouse gases through encouraging in-fill development along transit corridors and transit use; and

Support and implement sustainable development principles.

Outcomes

Denser development near and adjacent to transit nodes

Greater transit utilization

Walkable environments in the vicinity of transit corridors

Reduced automobile reliance

Examples:

The second phase of the Exposition line stretches from Culver City to Santa Monica. In 2012, the City of Los Angeles received funding through the TOD Planning Grant Program to support the Exposition Corridor Specific Plan. The plan is a land use strategy that is being developed by the Department of City Planning around five existing and future transit stations with the goal of improving transit ridership. The plan aims to adapt land use regulations to foster building design and a mix of uses around transit stations that will encourage transit use and improve mobility.

The plan addresses land use at five stations: Bundy, Sepulveda, Westwood, Palms, and Culver City.